Michael York is happy to be a part of this week's Mostly British Film Festival. Really. After what he's been through, a trip to San Francisco is not something to be taken for granted.

"I'm much better. I can do things, I can travel, I can look forward to things again," said the 71-year-old British-born acting legend.

The man known for such films as "Cabaret," "Logan's Run" and the "Austin Powers" movies has been fighting amyloidosis, a rare, frequently misdiagnosed and often fatal disease in which abnormal deposits of insoluble proteins clump together in different parts of the body, eventually causing vital organs to shut down.

It is such a rare disease that he didn't know he had it; one of his misdiagnoses was bone marrow cancer. Now he is getting the treatment he needs and is writing a book about the experience.

"If one can put a face on it, I'm happy to do so," York said by phone from Los Angeles, where he has lived since 1976. "I was lucky my life was saved, stem-cell transplant, and touching wood, I'm on the road to recovery. ... I now find myself speaking at medical conferences. Whenever I'm asked, I try to raise the awareness."

The Mostly British Film Festival, now in its fifth year, has been asking York to attend since near the beginning of its inception, but only now is he able to do it. He's wanted to come for the opportunity to present his rarely seen 1973 film "England Made Me," set in Nazi Germany, co-starring Peter Finch and based on a Graham Greene novel, which screens Saturday at the Vogue Theater, preceded by an onstage conversation with York.

"In a way, it's one of those orphans of the storm that got away," York said. "I did this the same year I did 'Cabaret,' and I'm thinking, 'Why do I want to repeat myself?' Young man, Nazi Germany. I was tired after 'Cabaret,' so I went off to Greece for a holiday. And there in the airport, I went to get a book, and staring at me front and center was a paperback of 'England Made Me.' So I thought, 'Well, hang on.' Bought the book, read it, and thought 'I'm being stupid, because this is wonderful.' "

The film came out during York's hottest period, when he starred in "Cabaret," "The Three Musketeers," "The Four Musketeers," "Lost Horizon," "Murder on the Orient Express," "Logan's Run," "The Island of Dr. Moreau" and "The Last Remake of Beau Geste" - all in a five-year span.

When asked if he enjoyed making "The Three Musketeers" films as much as it looked like, he laughed and said, "Well, now that the scars have healed! (Director Richard Lester) liked to shoot - especially a fight - with four cameras. He didn't like to substitute stuntmen - if you could do it yourself, you did. We got into all sorts of travails. A lot of the gags were quite dangerous - leaping onto horses where the saddle isn't tied, ride over to the other side and underneath. It was exhilarating."

Now, of course, he's cultivated a new, younger fan base for his role as Basil Exposition, a parody of M in the James Bond films, who gives Austin Powers his marching orders.

"Kids will come up to me in the airport and do my lines," York said, "which isn't a bad thing."

Now that he's on the mend, perhaps there are a few more memorable roles in York's future.